Social Media Influence On Presidential Elections

With the recent popularity spike of social media, presidential candidates have been using it as a platform for their election campaigns in order to encourage online participation. The Internet has become an extremely popular tool in online political participation. With this recent internet popularity, more and more people are spending their time online, especially the young adults, ages 18-29. The key to political participation lies in the knowledge of the presidential candidates, their platform, and the ability to register and vote. In fact, the 2012 presidential election “saw increasing sophistication of online campaigning and improved integration of online and offline participation opportunities” (Ginsburg, 215). Online participation includes social media websites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and as of recently – Tumblr, a popular blogging website. These social media websites are the most popular way for candidates to share their ideas through and lead to more online participation. Social media poses as a way for politicians to reach a large amount of potential voters at once, which is very beneficial if they want to get their views across more effectively. Years ago, campaigning mainly happened through television, …show more content…
They can offer behind-the-scenes look while they are campaigning, which to me makes them seem more relatable. Through these benefits of social media, they may gain new fans/followers, which in turn could create voters if those voters approve of their message. If you do not believe that using social media for election campaigns is effective – just look at how it worked for Barack Obama in 2008 and later 2012. He built a following of over 20,000,000 followers just on Twitter, and used Facebook to interact and connect with his supporters. Many of those supporters that he was able to reach out to, were young